


On the Scandocs

by imgoingtocrash



Series: Cloak 'verse [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ezra is inquisitive, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hera's pretty endlessly amused by them both, Kanan is confused and Tired and just trying to be a good dad, Team Parents, if this wasn't the AU that it is it would probably be canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 16:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11786640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: ““So if you guys are together, does that make Hera my step-mom?”It takes Kanan a moment to realize the reason he’s choking isn’t simply from the shock of the question, but from the piece of fruit currently clogging his throat. He attempts to cough it into the sink while a million questions create a hover-crash in his brain that come out as: “What do you—“ A cough. “Why do you think—“ A glob of mush empties from his mouth with a hack. “I don’t know what—“ He slaps the knob for water and finally empties his throat of the blockage. “Where is this even coming from?” he finishes, hoarse.The only clear thought in Kanan’s mind is that Hera might kill him if he answers any of this wrong.”Undefined and still developing relationships don’t make much sense to an eleven year old. Or maybe Ezra just wants to start going on missions and gets a little confused.





	On the Scandocs

**Author's Note:**

> I was pretty firmly convinced that I would A) not make anything else in my little AU world after Caleb Dume’s Cloak and B) I would never be able to pin down the ages/timeline stuff in that verse and would have to write around it if I ever DID make more fic for it.
> 
> I was wrong on both counts, thankfully. Weeks before I start my senior year of college that I’m extremely unprepared for. SO. It’s been a wild few days in my personal life, but this and another possible fic in this verse are the result. I decided that this one should go up first since it’s more fun and fluffy while the other deals with in-series stuff and got pretty freakin’ angsty.
> 
> Speaking of this fic’s timeline, I only really got it together with this fic and the next outside of general terms. I put the general summary on the Series' description, but if you ever have more specific questions feel free to ask me here or on my tumblr. I’m trying not to clog the notes with over-explaining and failing.
> 
> This fic is about a year after the events of Caleb Dume’s Cloak, so Kanan (25) and Ezra (11) have been on the Ghost for about two years. You don't have to read that fic first, but it gives more establishing backstory.

“Hey, Kanan?” Ezra says with the air of a question, casually strolling into the mess somewhere to Kanan’s right.

They’ve been on separate sleep rotations for a few days now, meaning he’s seen less of Ezra unless he’s getting into trouble or bothering Chopper to the point of the droid waking Kanan up with its complaining. It just happened to be par for the course in their last job: something that required long nights of nursing an untouched drink at a bar waiting for a contact, an even longer night of filching some Imperial crates from a shipment before it went off-world, and finally delivering the supplies to Hera’s unnamed contact earlier in the day.

Suffice to say, Kanan is tired and a little zoned out when Ezra approaches him. Somehow he keeps his concentration on not cutting his finger off while cutting the pear that he’s planning on pairing with a nutrition bar before passing out, but he does sort of just let out a little “mmm-hm” instead of an actual response to Ezra.

Shrugging, Ezra takes that as permission to push himself onto the counter not far away from where Kanan’s working, kicking his feet back and forth in the air. Recently he’s gotten tall enough to hop up there without assistance, and as long as Hera’s not around Kanan gives him the independence and lets the actual behavior of the action slide.

Kanan raises an eyebrow, prompting Ezra to continue with whatever question he was going to ask. He then shoves a slice of the fruit into Ezra’s palm in an attempt to also supplement his nutrition while he’s at it. Without Kanan around cooking it’s likely no one—including Hera—would eat decently. With both Kanan and Hera gone for days and Ezra’s access to sharper knives denied, he’d likely been chewing on nutrition bars and anything re-heatable for the last few days.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” Ezra says, but it’s really just a garbled mess of words around the pieces of fruit and juice now rolling around in his mouth.

Kanan stares for a second, narrowing his eyes significantly at Ezra because _he knows they lived on the streets for a while but he distinctly remembers teaching Ezra better manners than that, seriously._

Ezra’s eyebrows lift a little in response, attempting to physically show his effort to appease Kanan by continuing to chew. He clears his mouth only to jam a finger in his cheek with a frustrated sigh. “Bit my cheek,” he mutters, then shakes his hand off and wipes it on his pants. “I said I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Kanan grumbles, handing Ezra a clean cloth to wipe himself off with. “Don’t stick your fingers in your mouth.”

Ezra rolls his eyes slightly encompassing a facial gesture that tells Kanan he’s going to continue the behavior as much as he likes when Kanan isn’t around because he thinks Kanan is being ridiculous for some reason or another.

_Thinks the child whose masses of tissues and buckets of vomit_ I _had to clean up the last time he got sick_ , he thinks. Parenthood is just a true joy sometimes.

“So, you know how on our scandocs you’re my dad? And off-books you’re—y’know…” Ezra takes another slice of pear and sort of waves it around in his hand to make a point before taking a bite.

“Also kind of your dad?” Kanan is reminded to actually eat some of the pear in front of him while Ezra goes on with whatever’s got him on this topic. 

It’s not exactly uncomfortable to discuss for Kanan. He hadn’t expected to adopt a child as a teenager, but it was the best cover they had with less questions asked when the possibility of getting sliced documents became affordable. They used the familial titles in cover and on and off while at home. He often forgets it _was_ just a cover at first because he’s so used to filling the role for Ezra now. 

Ezra nods, kicking at the cabinets under his feet a little more rhythmically as he chews again, considering. “So if you guys are together, does that make Hera my step-mom?” 

It takes Kanan a moment to realize the reason he’s choking isn’t simply from the shock of the question, but from the piece of fruit currently clogging his throat. He attempts to cough it into the sink while a million questions create a hover-crash in his brain that come out as: “What do you—“ A cough. “Why do you think—“ A glob of mush empties from his mouth with a hack. “I don’t know what—“ He slaps the knob for water and finally empties his throat of the blockage. “Where is this even coming from?” he finishes, hoarse.

The only clear thought in Kanan’s mind is that Hera might kill him if he answers any of this wrong.

Ezra’s looking at him from his little perch on the counter as if he’s just had a stroke, which Kanan isn’t entirely sure is wrong.

Hera is… _Hera_. It’s an inadequate description and also all-encompassing and honestly he didn’t think he’d be talking about whatever they are or aren’t with an eleven year old while half asleep. 

It’s just—she’s the Captain first. Over anything else he thinks or feels, he respects the ever-living hell out of her. He would never water her down to just one thing and certainly not in relation to him.

After that…force, he wishes he knew. On Gorse he was flirty and acting young and stupid because it was who he became to protect Ezra. No one knew he was taking care of a kid off-planet, the people he worked for assumed he had no attachments because he didn’t care for them from the get-go, and it was much easier to not care and be selfish for his own family when faced with the suffering of another. 

On the _Ghost_  he had Ezra, had missions and jobs, and had a duty to fulfill that kept the flirting to a respectful minimum unless she initiated the banter first. 

 

(Sometimes she does that now. Touches him more casually. Teases him with those nicknames of ‘love’ and ‘dear’. Kisses him once in the heat of the moment but agrees that it isn’t the time to make it anything more than a kiss. Sat with him shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, laced their fingers for comfort and squeezed his hand on a bad day that kept getting worse.)

 

Ezra was smart. His specialty—force-connected or not—seemed to be connecting with people. If he noticed anything between them progressing to a definitive _possibly-more-than-teammates_ , it was enough reason to spark that kind of curiosity about a change to their unique unit. Or, force-forbid, make him feel threatened for Kanan’s attention. (Being gone on that mission with Hera for so long without seeing Ezra and remembering her bright smile and how at times his had probably matched made him feel a little guiltier about that last one if it was true.)

Ezra seems to realize when Kanan snaps out of the trance within his head, giving him a measured look, as if he’s a spooked lothcat or something. “Did I say something wrong? Should I have asked Hera…?”

“No!” he says, more panicked than he means to. He attempts to recover. “No, no, she’s sleeping soon. I’m just…tired, is all. I think I’m gonna need you to explain this one to me.” 

She’d hate to be woken for a non-emergency. They were parked to lay low and Chopper would be taking the helm while they both took a sleeping shift. If they were lucky, Ezra would respectfully find a way to occupy himself until they were back on more normal sleeping patterns.  She might strangle him if she was woken up only to hear that he was presumably filling Ezra’s head with ideas about if they were… _together_ , as Ezra had implied.

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.” Ezra crosses his arms, looking down as if expecting punishment. “You and Hera said if I wanted to start coming with you on the easy stuff and supply runs, I would have to be prepared for that kind of responsibility.”

“Yes, we did say that.” Kanan regretted making that promise the more he thought about all of the times that their ‘milk run’ jobs turned into blaster fire and admirable feats of piloting into the nearest hyperspace lane. However, he could see how often they came back to the _Ghost_ to find Ezra buzzing with pent-up energy and not many places to put it when he and Hera were both exhausted from a job. It wouldn’t be much, Kanan thought, but he hoped it would be enough to make Ezra feel useful and encourage him to behave when there was less excitement to be had. “So?”

“Well, I thought…” Ezra looks up at him and then shakes his head. “It sounds dumb. I just thought that part of that might be blending in. Having cover identities. All the stuff we used to do to hide from the Empire. I figured that if we were going back to that and you were still my dad…”

“She’d be your step-mom.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I’m not exactly half-Twi’lek. Easier to explain than ‘Dad’s Mistress’.”

Kanan goes from swelling with pride at Ezra’s considerate planning to sighing within seconds. “I don’t want to know where you picked up the concept of mistress, but you’re never allowed to mention it around Hera. Ever.”

“What’s he never allowed to mention to me?” Hera’s boots thump softly against the _Ghost_ ’s flooring as she enters the room much like Ezra had minutes before. She ignores Kanan’s pinched look and begins to dig around in the cabinets for her own easy to grab meal, much like his own idea. She’s seemingly more entertained than angry by the conversation at least, so he takes that as a good sign.

“How much of that did you actually hear?”

“I’m choosing to ignore the ending bit, so just the part where Ezra’s being our little strategist.” This Hera says with pride, running a quick hand through Ezra’s hair.

“You think it’s good?” he asks, perking up from his place on the counter.

“I think having a detailed back-up plan is always a good idea.” Hera rifles through a bin of nutrition bars, grabbing the flavor Kanan knows she likes best that he sometimes hides from Ezra for her and the last slice of the pear. “But you won’t be going anywhere if you don’t get off of my ship’s counter,” she chides. 

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Ezra mumbles, still short enough that he has a little bit more trouble scrambling off of the counter gracefully than he did getting up, trying to crawl backwards and use the cabinet handles as footholds.

“Uh-huh,” Hera hums, knowing Kanan allowed it and probably will again no matter how much she protests until Ezra stops finding it more comfortable than the perfectly good Dejarak booth. 

“Easy.” Kanan moves without thinking to let Ezra use his limbs as an extended support, providing more stability than the mishmash of rounded knobs and handles that he could break doing it himself.

“I got it, I got it.” Though Ezra does use some of Kanan’s arm to let go of the counter and safely traverse to the floor, where he smiles brightly at Hera. “No problem. Perfectly ready to go on a mission.”

“We’ll see, Ezra.” Hera chuckles and shakes her head lightly at the pair of them, though Kanan isn’t sure why he’s being involved, so he asks.

“What?”

She continues to shake her head and waves her hand in front of her face. “Nothing, just…you’re cute, is all.” She says that like it’s the most obvious, blasé observation in the world, then leaves with her food still clutched in the other hand as they watch her head for her quarters.

_Cute._ That’s not something he hears from Hera Syndulla very often, and certainly not about him in such a sincere way rather than teasing.

Ezra looks from the doorway Hera left through to Kanan, then back to the doorway where Kanan can’t seem to peel his eyes from where her once-retreating form stood.

“Wait,” he says, urgently tugging on Kanan’s shirt sleeve. “Are you guys actually _together,_ because I didn’t know that when I said—if you were that would be—“

Kanan puts his hand on Ezra’s shoulder, because once again, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t think so. But in the effort of not ruling it out by jabbering on about it to a child…

He grabs his own nutrition bar from the counter where he left it before Ezra arrived and gives Ezra a little size-squeeze of a hug on his way by. “I’m going to bed, Ezra. If I’m not up early tomorrow you’re welcome to wake me. I need to get back on your schedule if you’re going to be on missions any time soon.”

Ezra seems to be left with more questions, but Kanan falls asleep after eating half of the nutrient bar with at least one answer: Hera thinks he’s cute.

And that’s better than nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Hera was kind of talking about them both being cute, but she 100% does think Kanan in Dad Mode is cute. Even though this series mostly keeps to canon about them not being together-together yet, I like the idea of them developing their brand of intimacy with some romantic temptations in-between. (Basically, both of them saying “I would if we could, but we can’t, so we won’t…yet. But I want someday and you do too.”)
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments/kudos/bookmarks are appreciated. If you ever wanna talk or ask questions, I’m [imgoingtocrash](http://www.imgoingtocrash.tumblr.com) on Tumblr too!


End file.
